Posts by Lomax

Official abuse of state security has always been bad, now it's horrifying

Re: Duh! Who Says Privacy Depends On Huge Internet Service Providers?

Why would you need to invent your own encryption? Plenty of "unbreakable" open source implementations available, pick your flavour. All you need is a secure channel for exchanging the keys. I suggest a MicroSD card embedded in a postcard, if meeting in person is not possible. Or if you need to keep a digital distance, embed it in a lolcat picture on imgur. Or in the audio track of a Youtube video. Air-gap the crypting system. It's so simple it makes me wish I had a reason to do it. Sadly I'm not involved in organised crime or terrorism or kiddyfiddling, so I'll just have to put up with being snooped on.

Meta debuts its first 'mixture of experts' models from the Llama 4 herd

Reality be damned!

> "It's well-known that all leading LLMs have had issues with bias — specifically, they historically have leaned left when it comes to debated political and social topics," Meta's launch post states, before attributing that to "the types of training data available on the internet."

The data on the intertubes isn't right wing enough because the sheeple haven't been fed enough alternative facts - we'll just have to fudge it for now. But give it a generation or two and our new world order will adjust their way of thinking, and the training data will gradually need less "adjustment". Of course we'll have to de-fund science and history to keep the truth safe, but I'm told that's already being done (cheers Elon).

Time to ditch US tech for homegrown options, says Dutch parliament

Re: I hope this happens

This is all true. The OS was called LiMux. The documentary can been watched on YouTube. It is essential viewing for anyone with an interest in public sector IT procurement - including El Reg staff and readers. Or indeed anyone who pays tax. Too often the claims of the likes of Microsoft & Google are accepted without questioning. It is worth remembering in whose interest they are operating (hint: it's not the taxpayers').

Re: I hope this happens

Yes.

Dell discloses monster 20-petaFLOPS desktop built on Nvidia's GB300 Superchip

Nuts

It's pretty wild to think that only a decade ago this desktop would have topped the Top500.

AI running out of juice despite Microsoft's hard squeezing

Maybe my irony detector needs new batteries. Are you saying that a thing that is a thing isn't a thing because it's just a thing? Does the truth even matter? Who can tell these days.

The world’s data centres are using ever more electricity. In 2022, they gobbled up 460 terawatt hours of electricity, and the International Energy Agency (IEA) expects this to double in just four years. Data centres could be using a total of 1,000 terawatts hours annually by 2026. “This demand is roughly equivalent to the electricity consumption of Japan,” says the IEA. Japan has a population of 125 million people.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj5ll89dy2mo

As the world heats up toward increasingly dangerous temperatures, we need to conserve as much energy as we can get to lower the amount of climate-heating gases we put into the air. That’s why the IEA’s numbers are so important, and why we need to demand more transparency and greener AI going forward. And it’s why right now we need to be conscientious consumers of new technologies, understanding that every bit of data we use, save, or generate has a real-world cost.

https://www.vox.com/climate/2024/3/28/24111721/climate-ai-tech-energy-demand-rising

Google admits in its lat­est envi­ron­men­tal report: “Our [2023] emis­sions […] have increased by 37% com­pared to 2022, despite con­sid­er­able efforts and progress in renew­able ener­gy. This is due to the elec­tric­i­ty con­sump­tion of our data cen­tres, which exceeds our capac­i­ty to devel­op renew­able ener­gy projects.”

https://www.polytechnique-insights.com/en/columns/energy/generative-ai-energy-consumption-soars/

Researchers have been raising general alarms about AI’s hefty energy requirements over the past few months. But a peer-reviewed analysis published this week in Joule is one of the first to quantify the demand that is quickly materializing. A continuation of the current trends in AI capacity and adoption are set to lead to NVIDIA shipping 1.5 million AI server units per year by 2027. These 1.5 million servers, running at full capacity, would consume at least 85.4 terawatt-hours of electricity annually—more than what many small countries use in a year, according to the new assessment.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-ai-boom-could-use-a-shocking-amount-of-electricity/

Referring to machine learning as "artificial intelligence" is akin to calling an aircraft an "artificial bird". While it's true that we do not have a good understanding of what exactly "intelligence" or "consciousness" is it's still misleading to claim that an algorithm we do understand is "intelligent" or "conscious". The very fact that we are lacking a definition should in itself be enough to disqualify the claim. Outside the realm of religious beliefs the onus is usually on the one making the claim to prove that it is so - which is difficult to do without a working definition. But I would say that "AI" is neither intelligent nor artificial, since all it can do is to regurgitate a remixed version of its training data, which I think is very different to what we usually mean by "intelligence" or "consciousness". For one thing a conscious intelligent organism is able to solve problems that they have not been previously trained on. For another intelligence implies the ability to have new ideas, test them, keep what works, and discard the rest. LLMs do not do this; they can only look to their training data and the input from their (occasionally) intelligent users to determine "truth". Which explains why they tend to have such a poor grasp of the concept.

Re: AI isn’t

Someone (here?) referred to them as "stochastic parrots" - an expression that stuck with me.

Re: They gave the AI scam their best shot, but...

I quite liked Windows 7. Wouldn't mind using it still if MS kept it patched. The Win 8 EULA, and the atrocious Metro UI, pushed me to switch to Linux. Never looked back. Today I only run Windows as a VM, for testing purposes.

Re: MS AI running out of steam?

> I wish MS would fire itself...

...out of a cannon. Into the sun.

Re: What's the next boondoggle?

In Sweden you have to pay a tax on the electricity produced by your PV installation if the total output power exceeds 500kW - even if you consume all the electricity generated yourself. So a factory hoping to harvest free energy from the sun to cover its own electricity needs will still have to pay for every kWh produced.

SuperHTML is here to rescue you from syntax errors, and it's FOSS

Allaire Homesite

...nuff said.

'Uncertainty' drives LinkedIn to migrate from CentOS to Azure Linux

> Linux *is* obsolete

Thanks for the laugh!

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Windows will eventually become a Unix based operating system, with a compatibility layer like Wine.

The future of AI/ML depends on the reality of today – and it's not pretty

You started the division by giving air to that clown in the first place - bit rich to complain when others point out that every word that comes out of his mouth is an inflammatory lie. Same holds true for his army of bots. #LockHimUp

Re: Good for fun

I don't think that's true; in my admittedly limited experiments with ML generated code I've repeatedly been given code that just plain does not work. Often the reason has been the "AI" dreaming up function names that do not exist or are only provided by some (unknown) external library, or that the code does something completely different to what was asked for - but sometimes the code has contained bona-fide syntax errors as well. I would not trust any code provided by one of these systems, other than perhaps as a very crude starting point for writing my own. In one particular case where I was pairing with someone using GPT to generate code we ended up spending significantly more time trying to figure out why the code it offered up wasn't working than it would have taken us to just write the damn thing ourselves.

> Micros~1

Nice one, have a beer!

Angry admins share the CrowdStrike outage experience

Re: Who, me?

...but Management insisted on meeting an arbitrary schedule "performance target". To use correct management speak.

After all, their fat bonuses depend on it.

Re: Disk encryption on servers?

I guess if you're worried about what the law might find on your servers in the event of a legal... situation... then perhaps it makes sense. But in that case won't you be required to hand over the keys anyway? I wouldn't know, because I'm not involved in any potentially criminal activity. Are they?

Disk encryption on servers?

I must have been missing something; why would you use Bitlocker encryption on a server that is already (one would hope) physically secure? I encrypt the disks in my laptops with LUKS, since being laptops they might end up being left on the tube after a wet night out, and desktops because burglary etc, but I have never considered that encrypting my server disks might also be important. I've mainly regarded disk encryption to be valuable where unauthorised physical access might be an issue, but perhaps I need to think again? In my (admittedly limited) view the main threat to a server comes via its network connection, and possible vulnerabilities to network originated attacks in the software running on them - but from that end the disks will already be decrypted anyway, right?

Polyfill.io claims reveal new cracks in supply chain, but how deep do they go?

You had one job...

> the Sisyphean slog of maintaining special access for those who can't or won't get with the program.

I don't find complying with standards a "Sisyphean slog" - if anything it makes my job easier. Becvause I follow simple standards the sites I build will work in any browser that is standards compliant and able to render HTML5 (and supports TLS1.2+). I barely even need to test this - apart from some minor pixel level rendering quirks it just works. Sure, the sites will look better in a graphical browser that supports CSS3, and the interface will be more user friendly if JavaScript is allowed to run, but text-to-speech and Lynx users should have little difficulty perusing the information they serve, nor will anyone not wanting to trust my client side code be prevented access.

Where interactivity is needed I usually build it using HTML and HTTP first, and use these same endpoints asynchronously with XMLHttpRequest. Often these fragments can be cached on the server. Resources have URLs, and these are human (and machine) readable, and they can be bookmarked. Browser history works without requiring any hacks - including ending up at the same scroll position when returning to a previous page. To the extent that I rely on external APIs I prefer to do so on the server side, and I will ensure that these fail as gracefully as possible with cached and fall-back content. I do not like single points of failure that are outside my control (I'm looking at you, Cloudflare). JavaScript is only used where it offers a clear usability advantage. I find no need for any client side libraries like JQuery or Vue.js since browser support for standard JS methods is really quite good across the board, but I do use some specialised libraries like Chartkick. Client side code is is combined, minified and served from my own servers, with a strict CSP. The most important metric to me is speed, particularly LCP (ideally <1s), and running lots of code on the client can (and does) negatively impact this. Rendering everything on the client also leads to a ludicrous amount of duplication of work, with more or less exactly the same instructions being executed not only for every visitor, but for every content load. That this is an insane approach and that SPAs were a terrible idea should have been obvious from the start, yet here we are.

None of this is rocket science, nor can it be considered a "Sisyphean slog" - it's just the job. Shame so many of us seem to have forgotten how to do it.

Beijing wants more outfits like Temu teeming around the world

Re: Who buys from Temu?

I would never buy from Amazon, but I've noticed eBay doing much the same; degrading the quality of search results and removing more and more filtering options. For example it's no longer possible to filter results geographically, resulting in dozens of pages of exactly the same item from Chinese sellers. It's a dreadful user experience, which surely cannot be unintentional - though I struggle to understand the reasoning. The only search option that makes it remotely possible to still use eBay is to filter by "condition: used". And no, this does not seem to be related to Brexshit - the same is true for all eBay sites, including US, Germany and France. Does anyone have a reasonable explanation for what's going on with this!?

Desperately seeking ICQ? It may shut down, but Nina could resurrect it

This bring be back...

I joined ICQ sometime in the previous century, and continued using it for decades, much thanks to the excellent multi-protocol instant messaging (and IRC) client Pidgin. My username was #1089805, but one day I found that ICQ had sold my account to someone else. Apparently low account numbers were valuable? Today I use Element Messenger instead (based on the Matrix protocol), which is pretty decent despite the crappy Electron app. If nothing else they've got a convincing manifesto, and the list of project guardians includes prof. Jon Crowcroft...

I stumbled upon LLM Kryptonite – and no one wants to fix this model-breaking bug

How it works in practice

This was very last minute. I wasn’t involved in the prospectus at all. I can’t remember how this occurred. It was flagged to me that in the IT section of the Royal Mail prospectus there was a reference to, I can’t remember the words now, but risks related to the Horizon It system.

It seemed the wrong place. So the line that was put in said that no systemic issues have been found with the Horizon system. The Horizon system was no longer anything to do with the Royal Mail group. So I got in touch with the company secretary, and said I don’t understand why this is here, please can we have it removed?

UK PM Sunak calls election, leaving Brits cringing over memory of his Musk love-in

Re: Disappointing

I assume this is based on how people voted at the time, because a very clear majority is already in favour of rejoining:

The YouGov polling showed that 57% of Britons would now support joining the single market even if that meant the resumption of the free movement of people, a policy which led to millions of families and workers moving to Britain during the country's membership.

One in five people opposed it.

Support for joining the single market, which also guarantees the free movement of goods and services, was divided along political lines.

For those respondents who voted to leave the EU and who would back the opposition Labour Party in an election tomorrow, 53% support single market membership, with 31% opposed.

For those who voted for Brexit and intend to vote for the governing Conservatives, only 29% would support a return to the single market, with 54% opposed.

https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/majority-britons-support-rejoining-eu-single-market-poll-2023-11-29/

It's true that only five of the seventeen people who intend to vote for the Conservatives on July 4th are in favour of rejoining - but of the fourteen who are against twelve are cabinet members...

An attorney says she saw her library reading habits reflected in mobile ads. That's not supposed to happen

Re: Can the game access the tablet's microphone?

> I feel like if there was audio-data tracking, someone would have found it already.

They did.

The ultrasonic pitches are embedded into TV commercials or are played when a user encounters an ad displayed in a computer browser. While the sound can't be heard by the human ear, nearby tablets and smartphones can detect it. When they do, browser cookies can now pair a single user to multiple devices and keep track of what TV commercials the person sees, how long the person watches the ads, and whether the person acts on the ads by doing a Web search or buying a product.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2015/11/beware-of-ads-that-use-inaudible-sound-to-link-your-phone-tv-tablet-and-pc/

Academics in the US have developed an attack dubbed NUIT, for Near-Ultrasound Inaudible Trojan, that exploits vulnerabilities in smart device microphones and voice assistants to silently and remotely access smart phones and home devices.

https://www.theregister.com/2023/04/04/siri_alexa_cortana_google_nuit/

Ultrasound Sensing uses your Google Nest device's speakers and microphones to determine whether a person is approaching the device. Your device's speaker will emit soft, inaudible ultrasonic pulses. These pulses are reflected off of nearby objects in the room and the microphones detect these reflections.

https://support.google.com/googlenest/answer/9509981?hl=en-GB

The patent application describes a system where an audio fingerprint embedded in TV shows or ads, inaudible to human ears, would trigger the phone, tablet or long-rumoured smart speaker to turn on the microphone and start recording “ambient audio of the content item”. The recording could then be matched to a database of content to allow Facebook to identify what the individual was watching – like Shazam for TV, but without the individual choosing to activate the system.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jun/28/facebook-patent-phone-mic-listening-tv-shows

With built-in ultrasonic detecting abilities, your [Amazon] Echo can do more than just respond to questions. It can act like a smart motion sensor and perform tasks such as turning on lights or air conditioning, as well as alerting you to intruders, without your having to buy extra sensors that take up space and burn through batteries.

https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/amazon-echo-hidden-motion-sensor/

In this paper we evaluate the innate ability of mobile phone speakers to produce ultrasound and the possible uses of this ability for accurate indoor positioning. The frequencies in question are a range between 20 and 22 KHz, which is high enough to be inaudible but low enough to be generated by standard sound hardware. A range of tones is generated at different volume settings on several popular modern mobile phones with the aim of finding points of failure. Our results indicate that it is possible to generate the given range of frequencies without significant distortions, provided the signal volume is not excessively high.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/224198839_Investigating_ultrasonic_positioning_on_mobile_phones

In this paper, we present BatNet, a data transmission mechanism using ultrasound signals over the built-in speakers and microphones of smartphones. Using phase shift keying with an 8-point constellation and frequencies between 20--24kHz, it can transmit data at over 600bit/s up to 6m.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/343415125_BatNet_Data_transmission_between_smartphones_over_ultrasound

To demonstrate this technology, I recorded such a beacon being broadcast in my lounge room while watching Netflix. In the below image you can see the audio ends around the 15kHz mark with the ultrasonic beacon beginning at 20kHz, the point at which average human hearing ends.

https://theconversation.com/how-silent-signals-from-your-phone-could-be-recording-and-tracking-you-94978

Google Nearby enables Android phone users who are in close proximity to each other to connect their devices and share data, such as documents or media. Google says: To share and collaborate in apps, Nearby uses Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and inaudible sound to detect devices around your device. (Some people can hear a short buzz.)

https://cosmosmagazine.com/technology/your-phone-is-listening-to-things-you-cant-even-hear/

Re: *Audio*books

I have seen this sort of thing happen on multiple occassions - a conversation about something very specific being reflected in what ads are later shown. Anecdotal and circumstantial, sure, but I cannot deny being spooked by it. Extremely unlikely coincidences if that's all it is.

Global EV sales continue to increase, but Plug-in Hybrid momentum is growing

Please explain

> "The cheaper upfront cost of PHEVs when compared to BEVs"

How can this be? Surely a hybrid drivetrain is a much more complicated beast than a purely electric one? Honest question!

IMF boss warns of AI 'tsunami' coming for world's jobs

Re: How can they believe this crap?

What made us all richer was not the machines but the organisation of labour and the introduction of universal suffrage. Early industrialised society was a hell-hole for the vast majority. Capitalism will eat itself if left unchecked and like a cancer will kill the host in the process.

We're gonna need a bigger basket...

...if we're going to be able to put all our eggs into this one.

Nix forked, but over politics instead of progress

I must be doing something wrong

In the fifteen years I've been exclusively running Linux I can count on my fingers the times I've had package version conflicts that weren't easily resolved. I use Apt based distros and have been happy with how this works - my only concern being the growing number of app developers who can't be bothered to provide a repository or .deb for their stuff. Flatpak and Snap are increasingly the only options available, apart from building from source (which I prefer over the other two). I consider myself an advanced user, but cannot help feeling these are proprietary land-grab solutions looking for a problem. What am I doing wrong that prevents me from seeing the benefit of the bloat, duplication of effort and obfuscation offered by these alternatives?

Ten years ago Microsoft bought Nokia's phone unit – then killed it as a tax write-off

I don't agree

If any of you (including the author) had owned and used the superb N9 with the MeeGo OS you would not be repeating the incorrect claim perpetuated by Elop & co that Nokia had no answer to the iPhone. They were in fact ahead in many ways with a faster and more elegant OS that had many features later copied by Apple and Google. Unfortunately Microsoft were determined to never let you experience it, which has allowed this lie to persist relatively unchallenged.

European Parliament votes to screw repair rights in consumer toolkits

Phillips

While not designed specifically for it, the propensity for Phillips screws to "cam out" was considered a benefit on the early assembly lines: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cam_out

Torx and hex drives were designed not to do this, and are far superior IMO.

Numatic

My Numatic "Charles" wet-vac is pushing 15 years of heavy use. Made in the UK, all spares available. It could do with a new hose, but otherwise works just as well as it did when new. The design has no special screws, no brittle but essential parts. I reckon it will outlive me, and it can deal with anything. So it IS possible to make good things.

Middleweight champ MX Linux 23 delivers knockout punch

Re: Obsolete

> My computer doesn’t run an operating system anymore

No. You're actually running (at least) two operating systems: proxmox plus your VM's OS.

Top Linux distros drop fresh beats

Re: GNOME V 2

I'm going to send a bill for a new keyboard to the Gnome devs after seeing for the first time today the absolute monstrosity of a UI that ships as default with Debian 12 - the shock of which caused me to spray my morning coffee all over the keys. I'm a happy Devuan+XFCE user and was just curious, and now I have PTSD. What. Were. They. Thinking? This is worse than Windows 8/Metro.

Apple redecorates its iPhone prison to appease Europe

Je me souviens...

• I distinctly remember western lawmakers and financial experts compulsive gamblers promising that if we just opened up to China and allowed them to take over our everything, then China would be magically transformed into a liberal democracy, and we would live happily together in perpetual prosperity.
• I distinctly remember our captains of industry exploitative bosses hectoring us about the ills of monopolies and angrily demanding that we privatise every aspect of society - assuring us that once unshackled "the market" would guarantee freedom of choice and quality of service.

I'm not saying we were sold a lie, but we were clearly sold a lie.

Shame about those wildfires. We'll just let the fossil fuel giants off the hook, then?

While I share the sentiment of your post, I'd just like to point out that it was the eminent Swedish chemist (and physicist) Svante Arrhenius who first explored the heat-trapping mechanism of CO₂ and showed that our CO₂ emissions were sufficient to significantly alter the earth's climate. Arrhenius used the basic principles of physical chemistry to calculate the extent to which increases in atmospheric CO₂ could increase Earth's surface temperature through the greenhouse effect. He presented his findings in 1896.

"If the quantity of carbonic acid in the air should sink to one-half its present percentage, the temperature would fall by about 4°; a diminution to one-quarter would reduce the temperature by 8°. On the other hand, any doubling of the percentage of carbon dioxide in the air would raise the temperature of the earth's surface by 4°; and if the carbon dioxide were increased fourfold, the temperature would rise by 8°."

"Although the sea, by absorbing carbonic acid, acts as a regulator of huge capacity, which takes up about five-sixths of the produced carbonic acid, we yet recognize that the slight percentage of carbonic acid in the atmosphere may by the advances of industry be changed to a noticeable degree in the course of a few centuries."

- Svante Arrhenius, Worlds in the Making (1908)

See also: the planet Venus.

Systemd 255 is here with improved UKI support

Just say no to SystemD

I think the thing that riles me the most about this debacle is that it denies a majority of newcomers to Linux the simplicity and flexibility that impressed me so much when I myself made the switch. Coming from a lifetime of Windows* the underlying design principles of UNIX (and by extension, Linux) made a great impression on me. I know I don't need to repeat them here, but SystemD somehow manages to ignore and/or violate every single one. Binary log files. The endless feature creep. Locked in dependencies. Inscrutability. Unpredictability. Elimination of choice. That's far from all its issues, but we haven't got all day.

I readily agree that most newcomers will happily use whatever they've been given, whether it's from RedHat or Canonical (or one of their many flavours), and under typical use may never need to look under the hood very deeply - but if they do they won't find the same simplicity and flexibilty that so impressed me, just the big convoluted mess of wires that is SystemD. And they will never know that things could have been different. It's hyperbole, I'm sure some would say, but I honestly feel that SystemD has done more to damage Linux than all Redmond's underhand efforts of doing so put together. And short of some major player (RPi Foundation?) realising just how corrosive SystemD is I have little hope that anything will change. Many of us greybeards will continue to choose differently of course, but we won't be around forever. I for one will continue to speak up against SystemD until I draw my last breath - because I find it unacceptable and abhorrent. Brrrr. Thank you.

*) ok, so my first computer was a Sinclair, and then I had an Atari, an Amiga, and a DOS only 286 - and I've also mucked around with 68k Macs - so I do have experience of other systems. But yeah, all serious work I had done before moving to Linux was under Windows; 3, 3.1, 3.11, NT, 95, 98, 2000, XP, 7, 8 - and there they lost me.

New information physics theory is evidence 'we're living in a simulation,' says author

Maybe...

...but where are the wires?

Based on my own experience working as a programmer in various projects, it seems to me that systems do get more disorganised over time, and that they invariably bloat and sprawl and become less predictable. I'm thinking that predictability can be seen as a measure of order, in that the more ordered a system is the more predictable it is. Size seems to be an important factor; bigger projects appear to gain more entropy per unit of time than smaller ones. Some approach black hole levels of chaos attraction, where the only way to avoid having every hour of the day sucked into the crushing hell at its core is the rewrite that the beancounters won't let us have. And so we go back to work, trying to distil some semblance of order from our mess of wires - knowing full well it's a losing battle.

UK air traffic woes caused by 'invalid flight plan data'

Re: Le Brexit

> the carcass has to be kept on life support. (But that's what the tax payer is for....)

FTFY

Before the horse, cart

I would put the back-up system in front of the main system instead, and let it process (but not execute) incoming plans - should an incoming plan lead to >X number of alterations to existing plans, or whatever other safety limits you want to set, reject it and alert the wetware. There would be no need for a third back-up system; the "back-forward" system could still serve as a hot spare since it would have to be kept up to date with the state of the main system in order to perform such tests. This architecture would reduce the reliance on error checking the messages themselves (which has a near infinite number of blind spots), by including their effect(s) on the actual system.

Pentagon whistleblower Ellsberg given months to live

Re: Really? This tired old thing again?

"The charges against Assange should never have been brought in the first place. It is not too late for the US authorities to set things right and drop the charges"

- Agnes Callamard, Amnesty International Secretary General

"Mr. Assange is not a criminal convict and poses no threat to anyone, so his prolonged solitary confinement in a high security prison is neither necessary nor proportionate and clearly lacks any legal basis."

- Nils Melzer, UN Special Rapporteur on torture

"Journalists must not be persecuted or punished for their work anywhere in the world. In the interest of press freedom as well as for humanitarian reasons in view of his poor state of health, Julian Assange must be released without delay."

- Open letter signed by more than 70 members of the German parliament

"Julian Assange has made a significant investigative contribution to the news by revealing classified footage and text of possible US war crimes. In his work with the Internet platform WikiLeaks, Assange has always accepted immense reprisals in favor of reporting. The relentless pursuit of the investigative journalist Assange by the USA with the threat of extradition now poses a threat to free reporting in general."

- Excerpt from the 2022 Günter Wallraff Prize jury motivation

"I just say that enough is enough. There is nothing to be served by his ongoing incarceration. I think that when Australians look at the circumstances, look at the fact that the person who released the information is walking freely now, having served some time in incarceration but is now released for a long period of time, then they'll see that there is a disconnect there."

- Anthony Albanese, Prime Minister of Australia

"In view of both the press freedom implications and the serious concerns over the treatment Julian Assange would be subjected to in the United States, my assessment as Commissioner for Human Rights is that he should not be extradited."

- Dunja Mijatović, Commissioner for Human Rights, Council of Europe

"I observe the closest of similarities to the position I faced, where the exposure of illegality and criminal acts institutionally and by individuals was intended to be crushed by the administration carrying out those illegalities. Assange cannot get a fair trial for what he has done under these charges in the United States."

- Daniel Ellsberg

Oh Snap... Desktop Ubuntu Core to arrive in 2024

Re: This is probably worthy of an article on its own

> Video editing, maybe for a light home user sure, but if it doesn't run Premier or Pro Tools that's the userbase it's going to stay with. Have you tried editing 4K video with 7.1 Dolby Surround on a Linux app?

If Blackmagic's DaVinci Resolve doesn't satisfy your needs, what do you want? It's widely regarded as one of the best NLA/VFX/grading packages in the industry. It p****s all over Premiere while laughing. And while only free in the sense a beer might be, I'll take that any day over Adobe's virtual prison.

I'll also throw Blender in the ring, because it too has little trouble knocking out Adobe's and Apple's contenders when it comes to video editing. And that's free in both senses.

Re: Just when we thought that Linux gave us the freedom to choose

TBF I think this article is what Steve Davies 3 was referring to:

By order of Canonical: Official Ubuntu flavors must stop including Flatpak by default

Canonical has issued an official edict: the approved Ubuntu remixes must remove Flatpak support as of the next release.

The various Ubuntu flavors are not Canonical products. Only the original Ubuntu, with the GNOME desktop, is the "real thing." Even so, the company does have some control as it's Canonical that officially sanctions and endorses what is an official flavor, and what isn't. And Canonical has spoken: From the next release, no official variant shall support Flatpak any more. Canonical has its own official cross-platform packaging format, Snap, and as from version 23.04, only Snap is to be built in. The Flatpak plugin for the Software store will be removed too.

...

If you like Flatpak – and a lot of people do – then you needn't worry. The Flatpak tooling will remain in Ubuntu's repositories, so you will be able to add it back in very easily, as described on Flathub. There are just three steps, and you can even skip one of those if you don't use the graphical software store.

More UK councils caught by Capita's open AWS bucket blunder

Re: Hmmm

The UK government hands over roughly £1bn a year to Capita. I think you could run a fairly sizeable IT operation on that kind of money. Additionally you could probably recoup some of the cost by licensing your products to others. I know that's not "how capitalism works", but we've tried that and it clearly doesn't work - perhaps time to try something else?

Re: Hmmm

> They make a saving compared to what they would pay if they did it themselves.

You sound quite sure, and I have to ask: what numbers do you base this on?